SpyreStudios

Web-Design and Development Magazine

Leave a Lasting Impression on Your Visitors

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The art of web design takes years of practice to really understand how it works. There are so many ideas and UI elements which can build a solid impression on your audience. Designers are always striving to please the visitor and make their experience fun and easy.

Some trends have come out which are frequently seen in modern-day websites. In this guide I want to share a few ideas on how you can design a web layout which leaves a powerful lasting impression. Visitors will keep coming back to your site for the atmosphere and (hopefully) some great content.

Filed Under: UX

31 Super-Unique and Functional Website Navigation Menus

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Web navigation is a vital piece to any layout. Designers have known this for decades, but not all menus are built equally. It’s very important to distinguish between design and functionality. Some web designers understand this and attempt to better their own skills. Meanwhile the cream of the crop can incorporate both design and functionality with ease.

I have collected this brilliant set of 31 website menus with amazing UX and aesthetics. You need to capture your visitor’s attention and offer them a simple solution for navigating your pages. I hope this collection can provide inspiration for upcoming web designers in the field of user experience.

Big Cartel

Filed Under: UX

35 Free User Interface Kits for Mobile and Web Designers

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It’s great seeing so many graphic designers offering free web kits openly. Even 4 years ago you would have had a difficult time finding PSDs for a button set or iPhone user interface. Now there seems to be plenty of resources, almost overflowing! But there’s no complaints here.

As a digital artist I work with user interface kits on a regular basis. They speed up workflow and improve my knowledge of the graphic design trade. I am by no means an expert, but I have built plenty of UX designs and certainly recognize the power of teamwork. A while back we featured the Snow UI kit which offered some great scrollbars and buttons.

Well in this article I’ve added 35 of my favorite user interface kits from around the web. These include graphics for the mobile web such as Android, iPhone, and iPad devices. Additionally there are tons of resources for browser-based website designers. Check out the links below, and feel free to share your ideas in the discussion area.

Simple UI Elements

Filed Under: UX

Android vs iOS; A Usability Battle

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Lately I’ve noticed a number of articles with gripes and groans about the Android user experience, the way interfaces are designed, the usability of Android apps, and a lack of satisfaction with the whole Android ecosystem.

As someone who works on day-to-day basis with usability testing and user experience design, my interest was piqued. Were these users just iPhone users who expressed dissatisfaction after a brief flirtation with Android, or was there something deeper going on?

I can’t honestly say I’ve had a lot of experience with Android – although I do own two iOS devices – so I couldn’t write off these concerns one way or another. But rather than basing it off a few, possibly biased opinions, it seemed the fairest way to compare the two was to set up a quick usability test.

35 UX-Inspired E-Commerce Website Layouts

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With our modern transition into digital currency the popularity of purchasing items online has increased tenfold. Within just the past few years we’ve seen a multitude of new brands launch online. Many articles have been published offering usability tips for e-commerce design following many examples.

Below I’ve put together 35 astoundingly easy-to-use digital shopping websites. These are all built and designed for the best user experience possible. It’s not uncommon to find such interfaces with Ajax-styled shopping carts and login forms. Great experience accounts for most of your visitor’s initial reactions and will be required to keep them hooked using your website.

What 8-Bit Video Games Can Teach Us About Design And UX

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The computer sitting at your desk is far more powerful than anything available to all but the largest businesses in the 1980s, enabling us to continue to add layer upon layer without slowing down, and possibly losing focus on why we are here in the first place – to deliver a high quality product.

One possible solution is to this is to artificially limit your design and color options the way Shigeru Miyamoto was limited by technical constraints when designing Zelda and Mario on the NES.

While some of the NES library was filler, there were many standouts that used the limitations of 8 bit technology as strengths, rather than weakness.

Modernizing Scripts Every Web Designer and Developer Should Use

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Web development keeps getting better – there are more increasingly-standardized tools like HTML5 and CSS3, and their features let web designers and developers create advanced and good-looking websites more easily.

But some browsers – mainly Internet Explorer version 6, 7, and 8 – don’t support many of these features, like border-radius, gradients, text-shadow, transparency, CSS animations and transitions, and so forth…

Curing the Navigation-itis Syndrome

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More and more content is being published everyday and site owners need to find ways to categorize all this content. And with more content and categories comes greater navigation problems.

Sometimes navigation becomes a problem when there are simply too many options. Thus, it’s of great importance to cure the navigation-itis syndrome and make website navigation user-friendly and easy to navigate.

Usability Best Practices For eCommerce Websites

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Usability – a term that we hear almost everywhere we go on the web and for good reason. Good usability can mean the difference between one site’s success and the downfall of another.

Usability is especially important in the case of e-commerce websites. While most usability principles of regular websites still apply for e-commerce sites as well, the different specific pages such as shopping carts, shipping methods, shipping and billing addresses, order reviews, payment options, etc. all add another layer of complexity to creating usable online shops.

The User Experience And Psychology Of Colour

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There is a lot of psychology in colour, and while I don’t claim to be an expert, every now and then I come across something that seems to be rather counterintuitive.

I suppose there are some cultural influences on colour as well, and people need to take these sorts of things into account when designing sites, but there also seem to be some ideas that cross over cultural lines.